Thanks to these innovations he was able to take, in 1826, the first long-term photograph. Niépce’s merit was that he was able to perfect the camera obscura built by Thomas wedgwood two decades before him, and he was also right to choose bitumen as the photosensitive substance, and a pewter sheet as the substrate. However, the first full-length photograph was obtained eight centuries later, in the 19th century, and is attributed to the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. The foundations of photography were laid by Abū Ibn al-Haytham, a scientist born in present-day Iraq in the 11th century who wrote a treatise on optics ahead of his time, and also explained the process of building a camera obscura. But before going into details and seeing what it consists of, it is interesting to put it in context.
The process that allows us to color a black and white image is almost as old as the photograph itself. If you want to know how are they colored and what sense can add it to a historical image, you just have to keep reading. The interesting thing is that, despite all this, the coloring of photographs is living a “second youth.” The 16 digitally colored historical snapshots that we have told you about prove it. But many photographers prefer to dispense with the realism that color offers them in favor of the emotional charge of black and white. The dynamic range of digital cameras has improved greatly in recent years thanks to innovations in image sensor technology.
Hence, they are so widely used in artistic photography. It is enough to take a look at some of the snapshots of Sebastião Salgado, Trent Parke or Chema Madoz, among many other renowned photographers, to realize that black and white photographs have an enormous expressive capacity. The difficult art of restoring color to old black and white photographsīlack and white is still a resource widely used by photography professionals.